


undead

by tgrsndshrks



Category: You Me At Six
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, Ficlet, Gen, Guns, M/M, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 08:54:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tgrsndshrks/pseuds/tgrsndshrks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it's day 103 since the power grids went down. josh and dan go out on a supply run. they aren't alone in the pharmacy.</p>
<p>WARNING: this ficlet includes extremely graphic descriptions of zombie gore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	undead

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this like 4 months ago?? and only put it on my blog, but i just found it again and figured i might as well post it here.  
> i'll say it again. there is a graphic description of a zombie being killed. if you're sensitive to blood/gore this may not be for you.

It’d happened while they were on tour. Of course it did. Caught in gridlocked traffic outside of Dallas when the emergency radio broadcasts went out. But that was a few months ago. It felt like years but Josh likes to keep track of time and according to his tallies on the inside wall of his bunk it’s day 103 since the power grids went down.

The bus could get dark inside, but often that was a nice relief from Texas sun. The bus is still locked in on the interstate, blocked by hundreds of other empty cars. Everything is gone now. No government, no police, no hospitals. Those have been gone a long time. It was just them and the dead now.

They’d all been pretty thankful that they were in the American south when it hit. Guns. Plenty of them. It’d been easy to get weapons when they’d gone off on scouting trips, two or three at a time, the others keeping watch on top of the bus. Matt is up there today. He’s sitting in a lawn chair under an umbrella propped up in an empty trash bin, shotgun laid across his lap.

“We’re going out,” Dan says, stuffing a handgun in his back pocket. “We need to go to the shops off the interstate. See if they have anything for Max.”

“Alright,” Matt says, lifting his sunglasses to look down at them. “Don’t stumble too much coming back or I might pick you off on accident.” He winks and Dan grumbles at him.

Josh and Dan head off down the interstate to the next exit, one that would take them into some nameless suburban residential area. Dan carries his handgun and a switchblade. Josh doesn’t like to carry a gun unless he has to so he has one of those small hatchets on his belt, like the ones in glass cases in buildings if they’re needed for emergencies or something. Josh figured that the dead rising up to eat the living counted enough as an emergency so he’d knocked the glass in with the butt of a handgun and taken it. Josh always worried he’d waste bullets because he isn’t a good shot anyway. So the hatchet it was.

The town off the interstate is still largely untouched. They’d had a couple of run-ins, but never a group. Just single ones Dan would pick off with a switchblade in the forehead. There’s a pharmacy on the main drag, one with a sign in the window reading “TAKE ALL YOU NEED” and “GOD BLESS YOU”. It was mostly gutted. But Max was having a rough time dealing with quitting smoking (seeing as, well, cigarettes aren’t exactly readily available in the apocalypse), and now that he’s gone more or less cold turkey he’s grumpy and irritable and generally not the kind of guy you want carrying a shotgun. Dan suggested that they try the pharmacy for some nicotine patches or gum or something. Max liked the idea. Josh offered to tag along. He didn’t get to be alone with Dan very often. Josh holds Dan’s hand as they walk down the street past overgrown lawns and broken windows.

The pharmacy is near trashed by now, almost entirely gutted. Dan reckons not a lot of people are trying to quit smoking so there should be patches or gum behind the counter. He goes to look through the racks of medications while Josh browses with a basket, as if subconsciously trying to retain some sense of normality. He grabs a pack of condoms and tosses it in the basket. They might come in useful to someone.

Josh is digging through a rack for any spare snack foods when he hears one of the racks shake and bottles knocking on the floor, glass shattering, Dan yelling.

Josh drops the basket and grabs his hatchet, jumping the counter and finding one of the undead grabbing at Dan through the shelves. Dan is so caught off guard that when rotting arms reach around and grab him and try to throw him down he actually falls on the floor before he has a chance to draw a weapon. Josh swings his hatchet parallel to the ground like a cricket bat and buries it halfway into the thing’s skull.

Dan’s eyes are wide, pupils blown out black as Josh knocks the body to the floor next to him, wrenching the hatchet out of its skull. He lifts it over his shoulder and smashes the blade into the already-bloodied face, then does it again, and again, growling in anger every time. How dare this creature – this thing – try to touch Dan? Josh screams at the body, its head near smashed into the floor. Josh stomps on its skull for good measure, a loud sickening crack coming from under Josh’s foot. Josh pants. 

“Fucker,” he snarls.

“Oh my god,” Dan breathes. Dan.

“Dan,” Josh says. He drops his weapon and immediately gets to the floor next to him, grabbing his arms to look for scratches. “Did it get you? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” Dan says, still looking shaken. “I’m okay.” He takes a deep breath, looks to Josh. Josh grabs him and hugs him tight to his chest, sighing.

“Okay,” Josh says. “Okay. We’re okay.” He squeezes Dan’s wrist. “I found some crisps. I know it’s nothing much and they’re probably stale, but.” Dan smiles weakly.

“Good work Franceschi. Took down one of those things and found snacks, all in one day,” he remarks.

“Oh shut up,” Josh says, swatting him. He gets up and grabs his hatchet again, wiping blood and brains off on the mutilated body’s clothes. “Just get those fucking nicotine patches so we can go.”

“Should we tell them?” Dan asks. Josh looks at him.

“Tell them what?” Josh asks.

“That they’re in the town now. That we probably need to move on.”

Josh considers it. It’d be a difficult discussion.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Let’s just gut this pharmacy just in case.”

They take everything that looks remotely useful and leave the massacre for any other surviving humans to find to take as a warning. Dan teases Josh for taking condoms and makes some joke about priorities.


End file.
